


hands

by watergator



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: dan quite likes phil's hands
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 131





	hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ainsleygrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainsleygrace/gifts).



“Feel how cold my hands are!”

Dan barely has time to react until there’s two freezing cold palms cupping either side of his face, taking him so aback so that he wobbles slightly on the chair he’s sat on, giving a small shriek of horror as he imagines himself toppling over.

But he manages to right himself with a quick flap of his arms and a squawk that earns him a round of laughter from the two people sat at the table.

“Sorry,” Phil giggles through his hands, Bryony snorts as she laughs into her beer bottle. “You berk,” Dan grunts as he tucks his chair under the table, shooting Phil a scowl. “You nearly killed me.”

Phil drops his hand covering his face and smiles at him, head tilting to the side slightly, like some kind of puppy. 

“But the bottles made my hands cold,” he says with a pout, nodding to the icy beer’s he’d brought out that are sat on the table now. “Look.”

This time he doesn’t slap his hands against his face, but instead, picks his hand up off the table and holds them, sandwiched between what  _ are  _ pretty cold palms.

Dan however feels his face flush something hot, diverting his gaze from anywhere that isn’t either Phil or Bryony, whom he’s sure is still smirking into her drink.

*

Eventually their dinner on the balcony comes to an end, and their wobbly friend leaves the flat with her voice still floating around each room as she calls out her goodbyes, the taxi waiting for her downstairs.

The dishes are stacked up beside the sink and when Dan walks in, Phil simply makes a whining sound, much like a puppy again.

“Can it not wait until morning?” He asks as Dan already has the sink filling up with the warm water and bubbles.

“Nope,” Dan tells him, already picking up a wine glass and giving it a good scrub, managing to wipe away the lip marks around the rim.

“You might like living in filth, but it’s my apartment too,” he reminds him, waggling a sponge at him. “Now come help wash these plates or they’re gonna smell like lasagna forever. ”

Phil is still huffing and puffing like a child when he sulks his way over to the sink where Dan’s stood, picking up a fork and making a half assed attempt to wash away the pasta sauce.

“The water makes my fingers all pruney,” Phil grumbles but Dan makes no effort to even retaliate.

Phil is washing up a butter knife when suddenly it slips from his fingers and is plunged into the bubbles of the sink. Dan tuts and dives his hand in to grab it, but not before Phil does the same.

His fingers don’t wrap around the knife, but instead Phil’s hand. For a moment he’s frozen, feeling Phil’s hand underwater, (his skin  _ is  _ kinda pruney) before Phil clears his throat and Dan drops it like it’s scolding hot.

“Uh, sorry,” Dan says, stumbling over his words. He dares himself to flicker his eyes towards Phil, his head down, lips pursed with what looks like a smile trying to escape

“Told you my hands get pruney,” is what he does say, turning his head to face Dan before he has the chance to look away. Dan feels his face flush again, and concentrates on the plate he’s already scrubbed clean already.

*

Dan goes to bed thinking about Phil’s hands. He thinks about how he’d held them, how soft they were and how gentle they felt. He closes his eyes and opens them again, trying to think of anything but Phil and his stupid claw’s. 

An old crush that felt like a bonfire in the pit of his stomach was very quickly reigniting - of course all it took were his bloody  _ hands _ to make that happen.

Still, he closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep, clearing his mind of anything and everything. And of course it doesn’t work, because that night he dreams of Phil’s hand in his again.

*

The next morning Dan wakes to the sound of something cooking.

Actually, something  _ burning _ , to be exact.

He lays there, caught in between the idea that if Phil’s managed to set the flat on fire, should he just lie here and accept his fate and let his stupid flat mate deal with it, or should he perhaps get up and at least attempt to help?

He eventually peels himself away from his bed, yawning as he throws a shirt on, pulling his legs into his sweatpants and padding his way towards the kitchen where the smell seems to be worse.

He can barely get a word in before Phil turns around from where he’s facing the stove, a look of panic on his face.

“I can’t flip this…  _ flippin’ _ pancake!” He exclaims. There’s batter smeared across his cheek and his glasses are perched right on the end of his nose, his hair a mess and unkept.

Dan snorts and once again debates it over in his head whether he should just let Phil deal with this.

But being the good…  _ friend _ … that he is, he shuffles over on his socks and tuts as he grabs the pan, hands wrapping right around Phil’s.

His sleepy brain doesn’t seem to register it at first, taking charge as he tosses the pancake into the air, guiding Phil’s hand with the pan still attached as it flops back in with minimal mess.

Phil lets out a breath, Dan now realising that he’s still holding Dan’s hand.

“Oh!” He says suddenly, fingers relaxing as he slips away from him. “Uh…” he finds himself lost for words, hoping maybe Phil will bring it up, but when he doesn’t, just stupidly smiling at him, Dan opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Are you making me one?” He asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. Phil gives a breathy laugh and Dan feels his heart beat fast against his ribs. 

“Of course I am,” he smiles, shaking the pan as it lets out a sizzle. “You don’t think I’d make my housewife some breakfast?”

Usually the joke would have Dan shoving Phil in the arm, calling him a twat and to piss off, but now it feels a little different, almost as if Phil can see into his mind and into his dreams and is teasing him about it, teetering on the edge of something different. 

But neither he nor Phil say anything else as they plate up their pancakes and begin their oddly silent breakfast together.

*

They spend the day working around each other; Dan showers and Phil is working on his laptop; head ducked down and headphones wrapped around his alien shaped head as his fingers move across the keyboard, typing away at whatever idea has sprung into his wonderfully weird mind.

Dan, who’s stretched out on the other side of the sofa, lazily scrolling through his twitter feed, finds himself staring absentmindedly at Phil’s hand. He notices how smooth and small they are, in comparison to his own shovel like spades. He glances down at his own hands quickly, then at Phil’s, narrowing his eyes a little as he makes out the shape of his knuckles, the blue veins that run faintly under milky-pale skin, the–

He’s caught off guard with a sharp cough, blinking up and away from his hands to Phil’s somewhat suspecting gaze.

“Huh?” He croaks, feeling a blush rise to his face, worried for a moment he’s been well and truly caught staring lovingly at his stupid hands.

But Phil just yawns, stretches his legs out, his socked toes giving a little wiggle when he says, repeating himself from when Dan hadn’t been paying attention before,

“I said,” Phil says, voice muddled through another yawn. “D’you wanna watch a movie? Call it a night for emails and work?”

It’s not the kind of invitation Dan’s not already accustomed to; many a night had they overworked themselves with editing and filming and corresponding to difficult brand deals, hence why they usually would come up with the idea of turning in the night with some mindless movie that helped make their minds drift away from work, and on something totally different.

Dan clears his throat, realising that he hasn’t said anything yet, and nods rather stiffly. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Sure. Cool.”

*

Whilst their movie nights usually delve into being something mindless and easy going to stop any worries about unanswered emails or missing footage, it just so happens that tonight Phil picks a film that’s the very opposite of that vibe.

The horror movie he’d pestered Dan about actually turns out to be quite horrific. It’s far from the ones they’ve seen before where they can watch and poke fun at, leaving Dan unafraid to return to bed alone in the dark.

No, this one is actually quite harrowing. 

With the lights all off, Dan finds himself shrinking back into the sofa, as if he has some sort of hope it’ll swallow him whole everytime the music gets a bit panicky, and someone on screen does something stupid that has him holding his breath, feeling his pulse in his throat.

Phil, however, seems to be loving it. He jumps, startled when there’s a loud bang, letting out a frightened yelp of terror before giggling to himself, like he genuinely  _ wants  _ to scare himself silly, the maniac.

Another loud bang comes from the speakers and this time Dan’s foot nudges the bowl of popcorn between them, a few spills over the edge and without hesitation or even peeling his eyes away from the screen, Phil reaches down and grabs them.

It’s then that the speakers screech with the sound of what sounds like broken violin strings, the scream of the character, and the screen flashes with something horrific, making it the worst jumpscare yet.

Phil yelps again, but Dan actually screams, hand flying out on instinct, the other covers his eyes as he feels the sensation of his heart trying to escape his mouth.

He hears the sound of soft laughing, and laughter only when he peeks through his fingers to see the screen is paused, a blur of whatever was happening, he didn’t not care for, because suddenly he became painfully aware that his other hand that isn’t plastered to his face was instead gripping onto Phil’s.

He drops his hand away from his face, turning his neck so fast his head could have popped off, to look down at where his hand was grasped around Phil’s and then up at Phil’s face.

He can’t even make his brain work to let go, so when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out, and Phil laughs again, soft and gentle.

“Dan,” he says between a giggle, not once attempting to free himself from his grip. “If you wanted to hold my hand, all you had to do was ask.”

Dan’s mouth once again resorts nothing more than a dumb goldfish as it opens and closes.

“What?” Is all he manages to say, urging his brain to do something,  _ anything. _

Phil laughs again and rolls his eyes in a rather fond expression, head tilting again like a puppy.

“You,” he smiles, grinning ear to ear as if rather pleased with himself. “All these clever ways to hold my hand, yet, executed rather stupidly.”

Dan blinks dumbly at him.

“It’s not a problem though,” Phil carries on airily, almost as if he’s completely oblivious to the absolute meltdown that’s going on inside Dan’s brain right now. “I like it. Your hands are warm. And big.”

For now to be the time Dan’s stupid, idiot brain to work would be a terrible time. But Dan’s finds himself always caught up in the trouble of terrible timing.

“Yours are always cold,” he blurts before he can stop himself. “And tiny.”

He feels his face burn red, probably glowing from the way Phil smiles at him. Neither have pulled away yet and Dan’s heart is now jackhammering against his ribs like it’s attempting a prison breakout.

“Well,” Phil says, edging on a cocky tone. “Guess our hands were made for each other, hm?”

Dan doesn’t get another word in before Phil’s lazily picking up the remote fiddling with the buttons before he turns back to Dan, a slight smirk on his face. 

“You can move closer if you want,” he asks. “If you’re scared.”

Dan’s sure at this point his face is so red and hot it might as well explode. 

He frowns, clearing his throat hoping to ease some normality in both his face and voice when he grumbles,

“M’not scared,” but not before he does in fact move closer to Phil, nudging the popcorn out of the way, sat so they’re shoulder to shoulder.

They watch the rest of the movie hand in hand, Dan’s face still blushes red every time he jumps and gives Phil’s hand a squeeze, not missing the way he catches a small smile in the corner of his eye.

And despite the horror film that carries on playing, Dan finds himself not that afraid. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you would like a fic written for you as well as donating towards the blm movement, please see the pinned tweet @watergatorfics to find out more :) <3


End file.
